This invention relates generally to a telephone answering apparatus and more particularly to a telephone answering apparatus capable of prioritizing incoming messages.
Phone answering apparatuses are well known in the art and have been used for many years for the receipt of incoming messages from a remote telephone to a local telephone. In a typical operation, an operator of a remote telephone communicates to the answering apparatus at the local telephone a message which is stored upon magnetic tape. At a later time the message upon the magnetic tape is replayed for the operator of the local telephone.
This particular arrangement is suitable for the receipt of messages while the operator of the local telephone as equipped with such an answering apparatus is away or indisposed. It provides for an extensive queue of a first-in-first-out (FIFO) arrangement so that the operator of the local telephone is able to retrieve the calls only in the same order as they are received by the answering apparatus.
Answering apparatus are additionally employed by operators who require that incoming phone messages not interrupt an activity such as sleep. An alternative, so as to allow undisturbed sleep, is to remove the phone from its hook.
In general, the current answering apparatuses perform only a rudimentary function in delivering a operator selected message to the remote telephone and receiving therefrom a response message from the remote transmitter. No satisfactory mechanism of relatively nominal added expense exists so as to prioritize the incoming messages as received by a telephone answering apparatus, nor does a wholly practical answering apparatus exist which allows high priority messages from a remote telephone to be directly communicated on through to the local telephone even when it is being used in communicating with another remote telephone. All messages in the current state of the art are simply placed in storage by the telephone answering apparatus for later sequential retrieval.